1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is a saw mill with a circular saw that is operable by one man.
2. Description of Prior Art
A screening search was run by Richard C. Litman, Registered Patent Attorney, and the following patents were discovered:
______________________________________ 4,753,144 06/28/88 May 5,036,738 08/06/91 May 5,046,391 09/10/91 Lewis et al. 5,109,899 05/05/92 Henderickson 5,568,759 10/29/96 Peterson ______________________________________
Owners of tree farms want to maximise their return on investment in land and labor growing the trees. Owners of relatively small scale tree farms, under 500 acres for example, have a problem in maximising their returns on investments if they sell the trees directly to saw mills, or indirectly through logging contractors. Logging contractors usually want to clear cut, as opposed to selectively cut timber. Harvesting a few trees at a time is not of interest to most logging contractors.
Existing saw mill technology is such there is not an efficient one man saw mill. By this is meant that there is not, presently, a saw mill that can be efficiently operated by one man. Small mills exist, that are somewhat efficient, but they are typically set up so that for efficient operation, as many as four men would be required. The four men would include a sawyer, a log turner, and two men loading and unloading lumber. While devices exist for automating some of those functions requiring the manpower, those devices are expensive. Without an efficient one man saw mill, an owner of a relatively small scale tree farm cannot selectively harvest individual trees and process them into lumber in an efficient manner. Also, the extra help required for efficient operation of existing small mills increase the possibility of accidents. The kind of extra help an owner of a relatively small scale tree farm is able to hire is not necessarily the most safety conscious help available on the labor market.
Mills exist that use band saws as well as electric motor driven saw blades. Limitations to band saw blades includes a relatively short service life between sharpenings as compared to circular saws. Circular saws are much faster than band saws. Also, many people, such as the Amish, do not favor electricity.
As will be seen in the subsequent description of the preferred embodiment of the present invention, these and other deficiencies in the prior art are overcome.